Shine bright like a diamond!

I'm home sick today and finally, finally, after sleeping most of the day, I have a little time to myself to put down in words the amazingness that was Girls' Weekend.

Some of you might recall I was less than enthusiastic about the trip in the very beginning. Not because I didn't very much want to see and catch up with this bright, hilarious, wonderful group of women, but because I worried about being away from my kids for three days and leaving Lester alone all that time with two 3-year-olds and a 2-year-old (can you imagine?)

But I am SO glad I went.

The obvious reasons need little explaining. I had three days of free time - truly free. No demands whatsoever from anyone. This was unspeakably glorious! I also ate amazing meals (it's NOLA, hello!) and drank delicious cocktails and then could sleep in the next morning. People without children have no idea the luxury of being able to wake up naturally after a night of healthy drankin'...
I got to laugh and talk with women I like and admire and missed. And I met C. Thomas Howell on the way home!!! What's not to love, right?

But the real boon of the weekend came entirely unexpectedly.

I anticipated all the laughter. I anticipated all the great conversation. I did not anticipate all the crying. Or all the encouragement. All the building-up. All the intense, but loving, scrutiny and accountability -- the kind that can only lead to self-improvement down the road. I had no idea all that was coming. Or how much I needed it.

But from the first moment we all sat down for a meal, there were confessions, tears and support (all before dessert). Apparently, before I arrived, the same thing had happened at dinner with another woman. And before I left New Orleans, it would happen again  -- and again. Each one of us had things we needed to say, to reveal or to lament -- about marriage and parenting, careers and friendship, love and ambition, transgressions and regrets, loneliness and self-doubt. And when one of us would venture out into the water of vulnerability, all the rest of us would swarm around her like bouys, arms outstretched. Sometimes to pull her in for a hug; many times to push her on to truth.

It was, in a word, DEEP.

I knew I'd missed having girlfriends around, but even I was stunned by how needy we all seemed for sister-love.

Back at home, we all marveled at how emotionally naked we'd gotten -- after not being in the same place all at the same time for more than 10 years.

One of my girls sent us this message afterward, which I've edited a bit, to protect identities.

Was talking to my good friend, XXXX, this morning. She just got back from a long girls' weekend of her own - a birthday celebration at a Miami spa. I think her group had six gals, all of whom are friends from high school.

Anyway, she mentioned that the weekend had been insanely intense: in-jokes, crying, liquor, sleep, laughing, confessions, etc. She said it felt like an exorcism or maybe a rebirth. That beyond the ties of love, husbands, kids and friendship, there was the specter of their shared mid-40s. And that, my friends, is a scary place to be.

That must be what we tapped into in New Orleans. That this time in a woman's life opens her up to much intense emotion and self-reflection. Because how else to explain how quickly we reached that amazing place where we showed ourselves to each other after so many years apart? It definitely could have gone another way, but by the time we all got to [the house in New Orleans], it was ON.

I'm turning 45 on Sunday, and can I tell you how excited I am about it?! And I wasn't, really, before our NOLA retreat. These past couple of years have been especially tiring and scary. I've been lower than I've ever been in my entire life ....But New Orleans brought me back to life in a surprising way. I can face my new life with renewed passion and energy.
 
She is so right, y'all! Reading that again, I get all goosebumpy. My life is not on hold (remember that post from just a few days before I left for my trip?) I just need to approach my life with renewed passion and energy!

Since coming back from NOLA, I started Sugar-Free February, determined not to let sugar continue its chokehold on me. I'm not saying I'll never eat another sugary thing, that's ridiculous. But I want to be in control of what I eat, not the other way around. My girls helped me to get to this point -- they made me KNOW that I can do it. They also encouraged me (as many of you have as well) to take the time to get to the gym or to yoga and believe that my children will be just fine for a few hours a week without me -- even if I work all day long. I'm mulling that one over, but I'm much closer to pulling the trigger on at least ONE night of yoga a week than I was before my trip.

And maybe most importantly, we have all started talking about writing a book together -- and have a conference call planned for tomorrow night to talk about what that book might be, what it might look like, what do we regular gals -- wives, mothers, friends, writers -- have to say that hasn't already been said a million times.

But we know that whatever it is, it will somehow tap into the unofficial theme we adopted over the weekend, a running inside joke about a comically-sung Rihanna tune that somehow turned into our mantra: Shine Bright Like a Diamond.

Because whatever we do, wherever life has taken us or will take us, we know we all have the ability, the capacity, the responsibility to shine bright in our respective worlds (whatever that means to us individually), like the diamonds we are.

Food!

Friends!

Faraway friends who crashed the weekend! (So glad she did!)

Fuel!!

The French Quarter!

And the Fountain Lounge, where a five-hour sweat lodge, over never-ending cocktails, went down. I will never forget this night. EPIC.

I highly encourage you all to take a girls' trip, if you haven't done one already. You'll be so glad you did.

My blog is a snapshot

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be honest, really, truly honest -- even if what I was thinking or feeling wasn't popular or was controversial. Because I honestly felt like women don't talk enough about what pregnancy is really like or breastfeeding or motherhood or marriage or being a working mother, etc. It's like an advertising for the circus, where everyone only exclaims about the spectacular sights and the cotton candy and no one tells you that the whole tent smells like elephant shit.

Consequently, when people hit hard patches in life, it makes the hard patches feel even worse, thinking that you are the only person to EVER go through whatever it is that's happening, or to ever feel whatever it is you're feeling.

Everyone else just sailed through nursing - what's wrong with me? Everyone else's kids are well-behaved. What's wrong with mine? Everyone else's houses are clean, marriages are thriving, bank accounts are full. Everyone else is running marathons and taking classes and going on hot dates with their hubbies and planning creative excursions with their kids and buying big houses and getting promotions. What's wrong with me???

If we knew that everyone felt some fear, anxiety, doubt, unhappiness, restlessness, boredom, frustration, resentment, disappointment, wistfulness, etc. (along with all the joy) -- maybe, just maybe, we'd know that we were normal, and that this too shall pass.

So I vowed to be honest - about the good and the bad. Missing my kids like crazy during the day and then wanting to send their crazy butts to bed 10 minutes after I walk in the door. That kind of thing.

But it's hard, I've discovered, to really be as honest as I'd like on this blog. One, because I made the choice to make the blog public, which means other people read it -- and are likely to judge or form opinions. I've had this happen before with some things I've written, where readers/friends have taken things slightly the wrong way. Not wanting to be misunderstood, I guard myself and my words more than I thought I would.

And most importantly, this blog is most often about my life with the most important people in the world to me. I don't want to ever embarrass or hurt them, or give them the idea that something I'm feeling temporarily is something more serious than it is. Generally, my thoughts are just my thoughts right now -- who knows what I'll be thinking next week? But if you had a chance to read your Mom's journal and came across even one entry where she expressed frustration or disappointment about her life as a mother, wouldn't you wonder if that was how she really felt, secretly, all the time?

This blog is a snapshot, not the full picture. So I feel extra careful about what part of the picture I choose to share.

That being said, I have things I plan to post in the coming days -- nothing Earth-shattering or life-changing, but just deep down real thoughts I've been having -- but I wanted to get this out first, a preamble, if you will.

So hopefully when C, D and C read this blog years from now they'll know in what spirit to take any entry they land on.

And maybe the rest of you will too.